Monday, May 13, 2013

Will social media be a game changer for Indian politics?

Election fever has completely gripped the Indian media. Though
general elections are scheduled for 2014, the news cycle regularly
carries rumours of early elections every time another corruption scandal
breaks. Pundits, analysts and party spokespersons, appearing on
television every night, attempt to connect with India’s growing middle
classes. And a big topic of conversation: the potential for social media
to become a game changer in the next election, Mahima Kaul reports from New Delhi.

India’s large population and increasing teledensity, especially in
urban pockets, has spurred an impressive jump in the number of people
online. Moreover, a recent report released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IRIS Knowledge Foundation
has revealed that of India’s 543 constituences, 160 can be termed as
‘high impact’ — that is, they will most likely be influenced by social
media in the next general elections. As the report explains, high impact
constituencies are those where the numbers of Facebook users are more
than the margin of victory of the winner in the last Lok Sabha election,
or where Facebook users account for over 10% of the voting population.
The study then goes onto declare 67 constituencies as medium-impact, 60
as low-impact and 256 as no-impact constituencies.

The study certainly seems to echo the general euphoria over social
networking as a political tool. However, the number of Facebook users
might not translate into any change in voting patterns -– in fact, for
all we know most the 78 million Facebook users in India might not be
interested in politics at all. The study, however, clearly seems to
signal that the ability to connect with voters through this medium
indicates that political impact could be high.

The Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) has been the first national political party to have embraced
technology to reach out to voters, with a Twitter account, Facebook
page, YouTube channel, mobile app and live streaming over the internet.
Its controversial leader Narendra Modi
–- who some believe could become India’s next prime minister -– has
over 1,600,000 followers. Modi has also been quick to embrace digital
technology including a 3D projection of an address in 53 places in the
country at the same time. India’s other big national political party,
the Congress Party
is catching up. Media and IT cells have been set up with an eye towards
elections, and one of their star politicians on social media, Shashi Tharoor, has over 1,700,000 followers.

There is some merit to this strategy, although in a nascent stage.
Right now, there is a small but very active Twitter base in India that
is highly political and there are constant fights between the
right-wingers and the rest, which can be read as BJP-Congress fights.
Major political episodes in the country become trending topics and both
sides are able to make TV news headlines quite regularly. However, at
this point it would be safe to assume that most middle class Indians
experience political activity on Twitter through news reports on TV than
actually by engaging with the medium themselves.

Even the politicians who have invested in social media are quite
realistic about what it can do for them. Many of them, including Shashi
Tharoor and Orissa-based politician Jay Panda admit that people from
their own constituency are not following them on Twitter. Therefore,
while they can reach a large number of people through the medium, as
yet, they cannot swing an election based on social media.

As the middle class expands, more Indians are expected to get
online. Young people are digital natives, and those who can afford
smartphones are addicted to them. The general feeling is that politics
needs to adapt to the habits and lifestyle of this demographic, and
perhaps in that enthusiasm its real role gets overplayed in the media.

However, there is good reason to believe the future is closer than
we might imagine. A recent election in the ‘modern’ city of Bangalore
saw all politicians engage heavily with social media. And, India’s huge
anti-corruption movement led by activist Anna Hazare and his colleague Arvind Kejriwal
in April 2012 was almost entirely fuelled by media support and a very
engaged online stategy. The movement led to an anti-corruption bill
being tabled in Parliament. Many of the members of that movement have
now formed the Aam Aadmi Party
(literally translated into ‘ordinary man’ party) and rely very heavily
on social media to reach their constituency – the middle class. However,
Kejriwal only has just over 300,000 followers on Twitter, especially
when compared to BJP’s Modi or Congress’s Tharoor. Kejriwal’s erstwhile
movement, India Against Corruption has under 1,000,000 likes on
Facebook. For a movement that aims to represent all of the middle class,
the numbers don’t yet show their true potential.

And in the end, that might well be the final analysis of social
media in India right now. The numbers, while impressive, do not yet
indicate deep engagement and involvement in the political sphere. In
2014, politicians might do well to remember a computer screen is no
match for campaigning in the heat and dust of the smallest corners of
the country. Because, truly, that’s where their people are.

1 comment:

Gosh! With 1.6 million NaMo followers on Twitter, gawdknowshowmany ‘likes’ on FB, and 160 high-impact and 67 mid-impact Lok Sabha constituencies deemed social-media tiltable, India would seem set for a neat BJP majority by this time next year. Assuming, of course, that most of these Gesicht Buch/Twitzer types are going to whip themselves into an e-frenzy to have their so-heiled ‘development man’ get a thousand year reich or whatever. Will it happen? Well, don’t bet on it. This is Indian politics. Nobody knows a damn thing.

The Congress, in keeping with its name and auto-cracy, may have effed itself up royally in recent years; Manmohanji may have mis-gambled India’s energy security on a lousy nuclear deal instead of a gutsy gas pipeline project and then knotted himself up over natural resource ‘compulsions’ instead of declaring that cheap phonecalls and electricity are a policy preference while axing the corrupt few who rigged the implementation of this plainly pro-Aam Aadmi policy; and Rahulji, now well past his honeymoon with Intuitive India, may have failed to stir enough imaginations out there with the beehive buzz of his CII speech… but the party could perhaps yet salvage itself if—and that’s a 92 pointsize if –it campaigns not on its past record but on what the Aam Aadmi could gain from a party earnestly (in 69 points—MK Gandhi’s year of birth) rewired and rejigged to uphold justice and equality.

The BJP may be confused about the appeal of Hindutva, NaMo, or both, but this party could possibly win if—assign your own pointsize—it transforms itself into a centrist party (at least socially) by telling the knickeratti in nag-pore to go jerr-ahem itself off (a blackswan event), and if the party gives up ill-conceived and half-concealed notions of Arya-supremacy and The Other’s demonry (a greyswan event: blackswan crossed with Saraswati vaahan).

Will social media shape any of that? Or will it all be white noise and pfaff? Nobody knows a damn thing. What is clear, though, is that snappy summations often do help and politics in India often does concentrate one’s mind. So here’s my tweet-sized take: alas, it could end up a nose-to-no choice, what you can hold your nose and swallow versus what is an outright no-no.